


Tremble

by Fluffinson (orphan_account)



Category: Dark (Netflix)
Genre: Boris is Aleksander, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, but I thought I'd add the tag anyway, mentions of cutting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 07:26:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13266588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Fluffinson
Summary: Young Aleksander and Regina find a home in each other.





	Tremble

 

 

 

Regina can't think - past the fear, past the shock and past the inexplicable shame. She doesn't know why she feels shame, she hasn't _done_ anything. She recognizes, later - belatedly, that Ulrich was trying to pull Katharina back and maybe feels a little bad but then she remembers the woods and something dark gapes in her, eats her up, makes her want to cry.

The boy on the ground luckily wipes out most of the feelings Regina has trouble dealing with.

Instead she's worried, panicked. She doesn't actually know how she's going to get this boy home. She can't take him to the hospital, not after he's saved her.

East Germany.

He must have come from there, done something bad maybe by the look of his gun.

Regina doesn't want to touch it.

But she does. She tucks it into her bag, worries uncomfortably that it might go off.

He comes back around, luckily. His handsome bad boy face scrunches in pain and he lets out a short 'ow'.

He reaches for her with an arm and she moves into his orbit to help him up.

She's the one taking care of him, but still - when he tucks her under his arm in order to stabilize himself - it feels like the other way around.

Makes her blush.

Once he takes off the leather jacket she thinks he'll be less intimidating but he isn't. He still has his slicked back hair and dark eyes that watch her with interest.

"Are you okay?" he asks and Regina thinks no one has asked her that for a long time.

"Y-yeah." She stutters in her response but he immediately looks like he doesn't believe the bullshit she's feeding him. "You're not."

"I'm fine." He says and smiles an easy kind of smile like he means it.

It won't happen, she knows. Not between them, couldn't possibly. As her mom's told her she doesn't put in the effort.

Besides the last thing Regina wants is to be like Hannah and her all encompassing obsession with Ulrich.

Crushes suck, and it's not going to happen for either of them.

Regina gives him an awkward tour of her home after he's patched up. She doesn't show him her bedroom, just the general living area with pictures of her and her mom. She doesn't know what she's going to say about her dad, she worries about it but in the end he doesn't ask.

"Your mom works at the power plant?" he says.

Regina nods shortly, fluffy hair bouncing and she inwardly winces.

"Do you think she would need a worker?" He asks, and for the first time something a little self conscious enters his frame but he shrugs it off, "I can weld."

Regina doesn't know, but she thinks so.

"I think she would, she likes persistence so she might say no the first few times." If the last part comes out a little miserably Regina can't help it.

"Can I say I'm your friend?" He asks, eyebrows drawn high, waiting on her response.

She nods and again her hair bounces, she feels stupid.

He's not that old, she thinks, he should probably be going to school. But maybe he hates school as much as Regina herself. They seem to have a few things in common.

 

 

 

Aleksander gets a job at the plant.

Since they met in the woods Regina has been _trying_ \- but it hasn't been working. She doesn't look the same but she doesn't look better. Her hair is flatter, shinier, but it doesn't lie right. She still can't do much with it.

It makes Claudia happy and she remarks that Aleksander is bringing about good changes in her and that she approves of him. Regina tells her there's nothing to approve and storms to her room.

It doesn't matter if she changes her hair, her clothes, her weight. If she adds red lipstick, eyeshadow and blush. No one will just love her for her. And when she changes still no one loves her.

But then Aleksander comes to dinner and says right in front of her mother,

"Why'd you change your hair? It was pretty. This is pretty too I guess."

and she falls in love despite herself.

 

 

 

They start hanging out after work and school.

Sometimes in the woods, sometimes in the house. More recently in the little rented room Aleksander has gotten himself downtown.

Regina knows her mother wouldn't like her to go there. She's not really supposed to be alone with boys. But it was a rule from ages ago when Claudia thought Regina might be popular. Now, she thinks her mother is just relieved she's found anyone to take her.

Aleksander is just not anyone.

He's everything. So handsome, so clever, so grown up. More than that, he's saved her. He likes her despite her looks.

Aleksander will sit straight on the floor, cigarette in his mouth, and play her records on the player he's borrowed from his landlord. His smiles are easy and plentiful.

Regina's heart swells when she's around him and sometimes her face even hurts from smiling back so much.

He's kind of horrible at taking care of himself. Regina wheedles him into buying groceries and they'll cook something together, eat together and wash up together.

It's one of those times that Regina rolls up her sleeve, and she forgets - she isn't careful enough that he doesn't see - and her heart sinks.

Aleksander does stare, for a moment. He reaches a hand out and she trembles. He traces down her arm with a finger.

"It's okay." He says.

He knows her, he knows exactly how to handle her.

She believes him.

He kisses her forehead that evening when she leaves.

 

 

 

Claudia finds out where she's been, but Regina doesn't know that until she's ambushed.

She tags along to her mom's work because her mom makes her then she calls Aleksander into the office.

It's immediately apparent it's a set up and Regina feels sick to the pit of her stomach. Aleksander, for his part, looks as cool as a cucumber.

"Why is my young daughter going to your apartment each night?" Claudia demands, face like stone.

"Mom-" Regina starts but Claudia silences her by holding up a finger. Regina's ashamed that's all it takes.

"We're friends, Ms. Tiedemann, I can assure you it's nothing like your thinking." Aleksander's tone is unthreatened, professional.

"She's just a kid." Claudia says, shaking her head.

"I know that." Aleksander says and Regina feels it like a betrayal. "Regina - _wait_ \- "

He says it as she runs out the door.

"Ms. Tiedemann, I understand now how inappropriate it was to have her over. Regina's a sweet girl, a friend. It won't happen again that we're privately alone but I really hope you won't keep us apart - "

"You can stop explaining Aleksander. Regina's told me more than you ever could. She's a lovesick girl and you're not interested." Claudia sighs heavily, "just don't let it happen again."

 

 

 

Regina refuses to see him after that. For months, until she's sure they're not even friends anymore. That he's forgotten about her. She sees him with new people, new friends. Coworkers probably. They're all adults.

She cuts.

She realizes she hasn't for a long while. And it feels like a relief to get what she's feeling on the inside out. But it doesn't last long.

She hates everything. She thinks of stubbornly going back to how she was before - big fuzzy hair and bad clothes and all of it. But instead it takes a different direction. Instead she gets her hair sleek, she practices until she gets her makeup right.

Even Regina can admit she almost looks pretty.

The boys at school start to notice her and she's cold to them.

They never liked her before.

 

 

 

Aleksander corners her in the woods on her way home one day.

She isn't expecting it.

"Regina. Just wait." He says, approaching her slowly like she's a skittish animal.

She both wants desperately to see him and to not see him.

"I miss you." He says. "I'm hoping you miss me."

When she doesn't say anything he continues,

"I'm sorry for calling you a kid. You're just young. I never meant it like that. I couldn't bear not seeing you again."

"Is it 'cause I look better?" she says, and whimpery tears come out in her voice.

"You look like you, whether you have makeup on or not." Aleksander says, brows furrowing a little in confusion.

After the tears, it's too late, Regina can't keep a strong front. Aleksander pulls her gently into his arms to comfort her and she lets him.

It takes her a moment to realize Aleksander is crying too. She tries to pull back but her only hugs her tighter.

"I don't - my family is...you're all I have now. You're my family Regina."

Just like that, she's no longer thinking about herself. She hugs him back just as tightly. He devolves into sobs and she holds him.

 

 

 

He traces her newly healed scars through a haze of cigarette smoke as they lounge in his apartment.

"These are mine, aren't they?" He says heavily.

Regina doesn't answer that. She feels ashamed.

"Don't do this again Regina, if you can help it. I don't like seeing you hurt." He says, and Regina thinks he doesn't get it, "Not on the inside and not on the outside."

But maybe he does.

"Keep coming around kid." Aleksander says on her way out and messes up her carefully coiffed hair with his hand.

She finds she doesn't mind that time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
